German Election Result

No thread on this?

Not seen a more depressed winner of an election since, errr, well Theresa May.

Must be a bitter pill, seeing AfD do surprisingly well, especially given German fear of the far right, and seeing her own party do so badly.

No one wants to go into coalition with AfD - I can only image how toxic that would be to a party's future - so whatever coalition forms is going to a very unhappy marriage of convenience, and the most likely is looking like what the media have termed the 'Jamaica' option of Merkel's party, the pro-business FDP and the Greens, which sounds like a recipe for instability.

The FDP are hardly environmentalists, and Merkel's own green credentials have worn thin, so I'm wondering what baubles will buy off the Greens? And how long a coalition could last before the internal squabblings shred it apart.

Packard?

It was the result everyone expected. Frankly, Merkel has been a mediocre leader at best and at worst she has displayed some very authoritarian tendencies. Ordering police and government agencies not to collect statistics on migrant criminality, attacking media outlets who dared to tell the truth, threatening American firms because she is against free speech and fears the truth will get out, allowing in millions of fake refugees which now even she has admitted that around 90% were just economic migrants trying to cheat the system and not real refugees.

She should have been thrown into a garbage can long ago.

Yeah, pretty much what @Ebeneezer Goode said.

The results were as predicted mostly, with the Greens doing better and the Social Democrats doing a lot worse than expected; both of which was well earned. I was hoping for a Black/Green coalition, which is working surprisingly well in some states, and it seems I will get that. The FDP thrown into the mix, but they have so little spine that that might work despite their professed differences.

Obviously, I would prefer a left-wing government, but you need competence to govern, and the SPD doesn't have any. At all.

In a way, given the challenge that the AfD poses to our whole system of government, there is some logic to a government unified not by specific interests but by their basic agreement on fundamental democratic values. So that is what we will get. The one real common ground shared by FDP and Greens is civil liberties, so that's good. This government will not have a Parliamentary majority to push through anti-terror legislation that violates basic freedoms.

Still, AfD. Fuckfuckfuck.

I'm hoping Merkel's comment of taking on board the concerns of AfD's voters isn't just a sop, hoping it's a temporary blip, because if there is one thing to ensure it isn't a temporary blip, it's doing just that.

The UK and the Dutch both tried the "nothing to see here" approach, and it just doesn't work. There are genuine, if uncomfortable, concerns about integration, and it's finding that line where you can accommodate other cultures whilst enforcing that respect isn't a one way street and that integration isn't the same as assimilation.

For me, the biggest problem is a vocal and sizeable minority of Islam both blocking integration with refusal to respect Western society, and providing rationale for the far right to claim Islam is an issue in its entirety and providing a masque of respectability for the far right. Remove that, and the far right will crawl back under their rocks, retain it and the problem just gets worse.

Politicians of any stripe don't seem to be very good at dealing with it though.

Another thought - what does this portend for the EU?

A lot of the Eastern EU nations would identify with AfD's attitudes towards refugees and migrants, and it could be argued their reticence to share their burden set the scene for yesterday.

Berlin isn't known for it's lack of commentary when it feels it's being unfairly burdened by it's fellow Europeans, and the Eastern nations aren't exactly known for taking such commentary with grace, so I imagine some sparks there.

Then there's Macron's plans, which are entirely reliant on a strong German partner being on board. I imagine he's hardly cartwheeling around the house.

https://www.theguardian.com/comment...eco-vandal-angela-merkel-german-environmental

Even the left hates Merkel. She has been consistently bad at just about everything.

Why should any of the eastern countries "shoulder their share of the burden" when the entire problem was 100% caused by the idiot Merkel opening her big fat mouth and inviting every 3rd worlder to come in and sign up for welfare?

Seriously, Merkel single handedly created this problem so her whining and cattercalling about how others should bail her out is just such rank bull shit. She created the problem so let Germany suffer for her poor decisions.

"Even" the left? She's right-wing.

Oh, Jesus Christ! Tell us another one!



She is to the left of just about every politician in the US. If that is what passes for a conservative in Germany then no wonder you guys have such bad policies.

Yes. The AfD says that no country should need to accept refugees, backing Hungary and others while criticising Merkel. But Merkel's new partners are even more liberal than her in these regards, and the strongest critics of her refugee policy within her own two parties, the CSU, lost worse than anyone else in the election.

This should not be overlooked: Yes, the ten percent voting AfD were certainly motivated by their disagreement with the refugee policy. But a firm majority voted for those parties that support it. That doesn't mean that concerns shouldn't be taken seriously, but it would be false to claim that the population disagrees with Merkel's course. Most of them don't.

STFU @Dinner.

I see that there has been a split in the ranks of the AfD already...

Let them split, what do I care? Though it is just one person (albeit there former leader) as she apparently had a big disagreement with the majority of her party.

Either way it is good to see genuine debate and more voices being heard. There are legitimate concerns for many people who the German political establishment has simply been ignoring or lying about and calling all sorts of nasty names so people got tired of it and voted for someone new. The end result is the German political establishment is going to have to become more responsive to the will of the people and that is a good thing.

I wasn't being clear enough, my query wasn't will Germany change policy on refugees, but will blame for the result be directed towards to those East European EU members who proved more reticent at taking them? And, if so, what will their response be?

In short, will Germany take them to task?

Let me guess? You were frothing when typing that?

Is it a case of that every time you see the word 'refugee', you hear that WeeeOOh sound from Kill Bill, and proceed to act like Dr Jekyll having had a slug of his serum?

I've condemned Merkel for her actions, but have tended to manage it without sounding like I'm one pint away from a beer hall putsch. You should give it a try.

I think that is a complete mischaracterization of what I wrote. It is factually true that Merkel set the migration of 2015 off by saying she would welcome anyone who made it to Germany. It is factually true that she doubled down on that statement multiple times despite many people questioning it. It is true that she later walked it back when she saw the hoards she had unleashed but by then the damage was done. Never did she consult with any other country before she foolishly set the stampede off.

Yes, I think it is entirely fair for other countries to simply say "Nope, you created this mess so it is your problem". That Merkel has been busy trying to bully, arm twist, and punish everyone else to bail her out of her self created problem is just disgusting. Worse none of those fake refugees want to stay in the poorer east and they will likely just return to German under new names; thry are after welfare and will go where ever welfare is highest.

Even the German government has stated that over 90% of the "refugees" do not legally qualify as refugees while in Italy 97% of the boat people do not qualify as refugees according to tge UNHCR. They are overwhelmingly fakes and fraudsters.

https://www.google.com/amp/www.dail...p/Less-3-migrants-reached-Italy-refugees.html

It's not so much what you write, it's the tone and repetition across threads.

It's like the fucking bore in a bar who can't go 5 minutes without converting whatever conversation is going on into something about their shitty life. Yeah, we get the fucking message, you'd cheerfully co-opt the Grand Canyon as mass grave for every poor bastard who didn't meet your criteria, we get it. You've probably got a Panini sticker album somewhere with pictures of dead refugees fished out of the Med, maybe even a big poster on your bedroom wall of the kid they found on the beach.

Keep saving up, and who knows? Maybe you'll be able to get your lampshade and commemorative gold tooth from the Auschwitz Visitors shop one day.

I think the attempts to get them to take in more refugees will continue, but no more forcefully nor any more successfully than before.

^

What a load of horse shit. I have not advocated violence against migrants nor do I intend to start. I have pointed out the system is completely vroken and that an Australia style solution is badly needed. "Come illegally and you will never be allowed to stay, ever" as that would stop this over night. People need to be vetted and cleared BEFORE coming and countries need to immediately deport all of these fraudsters.

As it is less than 7% of the people ordered deported actually do get deported. That is the very definition of a broken system.

Also I note that you continue to claim they are refugees despite being show a link to the UNHCR saying virtually none of them are infact refugees.

Is this just an oversight on your part, do you disagree with the UNHCR's findings, or are you deliberately pretending they are refugees when even the UN admits virtually none of them are?

Packard is also guilty of this.

Yet another election where I get to point and laugh.

http://www.npr.org/sections/paralle...-making-sense-of-the-right-shift-in-elections

Anyway, great analysis by NPR.

I will consider this.

Don't fucking lie. If introspection was in your nature there'd be a shotgun in your mouth.

Your link leads to the Daily Mail, not UNHCR, and their source is no less than fucking Breitbart.

Well, it's a step up for the Mail - pulling it out of someone else's arsehole.

So are you even aware of when you lie any more or have you reached the point of where you just lie compulsively now?

Don't you feel that if you are reduced to lying and distorting the facts than maybe you should rethink your position? That is really sad, dude.

So to be clear are you claiming the quoted UNHC Report does not exist? Has the cognitive dissonance in your head reached such a crescendo that you now mimic what you claimed to hate? Like a Trumpian follower you now just mindlessly chant fake news?